


The Last Horseman Standing

by OtterSwirl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: COVID, Epidemics, Gen, HIV/AIDS, Pandemics, They/them pronouns for Pestilence (Good Omens), Viruses, epidemiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28363662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtterSwirl/pseuds/OtterSwirl
Summary: After Armageddidnt, Pestilence comes out of retirement.
Kudos: 7





	The Last Horseman Standing

Here is a figure in a tattered white cloak. Long strings of dirty pale hair blow around the face, which is not human. The white beak resembles a bird's skull; the round, flat, shining eyes above it are blank. This is Pestilence.

Since 1936 they have been mostly resting. The diseases all run themselves, these days. Most of the good old bacterial infections are in decline, although when some of the little buggers develop resistance Pestilence cheers them on, like a tired deprived parent at a muddy football game.

The bright lights of modern medicine hurt their rheumy eyes. Better to rest, and let their old creations have their final hour. When they get up to stretch their legs, they walk in stinking cities among handbuilt houses. The feeling of one billion humans on the planet still without clean drinking water or sanitary toilets is reassuring, like hot tea on a cold day. It used to be more, but they warm themselves on the remaining glow of poverty, nodding as they pass unseen through crowded slums.

Occasionally they meet that other one, the whippersnapper, barely two centuries old. The old white figure inclines their beak. The new one grins.

Mostly Pestilence sleeps, and dreams of viruses.

Viruses are the future. So much potential wrapped in tiny packets of protein and fat. Little parasites that need to colonise other cells, they can barely be called an organism at all. But the effects they have on their host organism can be sublime. Once they're installed the reproduce so quickly. Blink and there are billions of them, the genetic code copied blindly from cell to cell. 

Errors in the script are inevitable. Most of the mutations don't confer any evolutionary advantage; but sometimes they create something new, something beautiful.

Viruses have to be subtle. If they're too effective and overwhelm their host too aggressively, they die out. Like a skilled torturer, the trick is to keep the host alive as long as possible, to give them time to infect others. There's artistry in the details.

Pestilence stirs in the 1980s. The seeds they sowed six decades ago in Kinshasa, one of their last acts before retirement, bloom across the globe. Human flesh provides such fertile ground, and they are so compulsively  _ social _ . They do most of the work themselves.

Satisfied, Pestilence rests. They sense the call that comes when Armageddon nearly happens. Yes, they think, now is a good time. The humans have had their day. Pestilence yawns, their long beak clacking on hidden teeth. Let the young 'un have their fun. The end will be the same whichever of them rides.

When Armageddon doesn't happen, Pestilence gets to their feet, or at least to the flapping ends of their robe. They lift their beak and scent the air. The world smells different. They felt the ripples, the wave of happening and then unhappening. The other four were getting steadily more solid for a while, and now they can't be felt at all. 

Pestilence laughs, a crackling, wet noise. Looks like they're the last horseman standing after all.

-

Pestilence likes China. So many opportunities. After their success with the chimps they are eager to explore the potential of other species. Bats, for instance. Bats are fascinating. Here the humans like to capture wild animals and hold them in captivity, close to other wild animals, and then eat them. It's all so cosy. 

Certain plants, when planted next to one another, attract beneficial insects, share nutrients or repel predators. In the same way, Pestilence cultivates viruses, encouraging them to hop aboard new species. First bats, then mammals. Civets. Dromedaries. Pangolins. Humans.

The first experiments make the humans  _ very _ sick. The death rate is excitingly high, and Pestilence enjoys the terror of the dying. Viral pneumonia is so much more frightening than bacterial. Bacterial infections are a hot spot on the lung, a single piece of damaged tissue. Viral pneumonia infects the whole lung evenly, like a suffocating fog. Drowning in their own bodily fluids: it's a beautiful piece of work. But the infection rate isn't as high as Pestilence would like. And the sickness is easy to detect. The humans get the epidemic under control, but the exertion energises Pestilence. They feel more alive than they have in years. They have a project now. 

Back to the bats. The next attempt, at the other end of the continent, is a flop. Very lethal in vulnerable populations, and the infection rate is far too low. They have in mind a virus that infects healthy people as well as sick ones, with an exciting variety of outcomes; mild or serious depending on the host's inflammatory response. 

Asymptomatic shedding, that's the trick. If people don't know they have it, they'll spread it around like wildfire.

And then, in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Pestilence spies their opportunity. And within a few short weeks, the world turns upside down.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in April 2020 as a way of processing what was happening. It was intended to be the start of a longer work, but apparently this bit was the bit I needed to write, and I never got any further. Many thanks to This Podcast Will Kill You for the epidemiology.


End file.
